Today we head up to the top floor…
At the top of the stairs in the west staircase. For David’s benefit, note there is some water damage around the window frames.
Looking out the windows over a sea of surface lots. This is the 1927 expansion.
A view of the classroom in the 1927 wing.
The rough wall tiles are visible behind where the chalkboards once stood.
A view down the hallway, note the vaulted ceilings.
Little lockers… Looking back towards the west stairs.
Another classroom.
This room features a different kind of windows from the other one…
This room was in the 1926 wing (from what I recall). Note that the original exterior wall from the 1918 (maybe 1921?) building was revealed behind the chalkboard.
Again for David’s benefit, this is the room at the top of the tower. The ceiling is caved in, and floor was too spongy to safely walk around in.
One of the restrooms on the top floor.
Tomorrow we head to the basement…
That ceiling is caved in? You’ve gotta be kidding me. I don’t even see it. If it’s off by 2 centimetres, it can be easily cleaned up with an inexpensive suspended drop ceiling. If the floor is too spongy to walk on the top floor, it’s easily fixed by screwing on a spruce plyboard subfloor. It’s mostly cosmetic or something readily fixable. But, that’s besides the point… They could close it off and the rest of it is still usable. A solidly built commercial building like this would hold up the test of time.
This wasn’t built like an older single family home with plaster walls and clapboard exterior walls that if you had water damage from missing shingles for a couple years it would be a write off. The old building codes saw these buildings built to a much higher standard than regular houses: cinderblock firewalls in the halls, floors reinfored by steel I-beams, double brick exterior walls, etc. This was a very solid building.
Even if you modernized the interior with simple modular commercial upgrades, you’d still have the glorious exterior which is a thousand times better than the lifeless glass turd they’re gonna put in it’s place. I’d call this cosmetic, fixable, and the demo a failing grade for the University of Windsor in improving their campus.
In any case, I hope you guys are more politically vocal about some of the glorious buildings that remain like WD Lowe. Hate to see that building endure the same fate.
I disagree with everything you said, David. This is not a pet renovation project, it is a school building that is to be heavily used by hundreds of people every day.
It does not take much time to come up with some issues that would have needed addressing if this building was to be preserved:
The exterior was rough in at least a few places, needing work;
The building had asbestos in it — this is a health can of worms one doesn’t want to open lightly;
The building likely did not pass modern building codes;
The building likely did not pass modern fire safety codes;
The building had poor/inefficient insulation (drafty and cold in winter, hot in summer), requiring a lot of work;
The building had NO modern heating/cooling system, requiring massive amounts of work;
The building did not meet modern accessibility codes (some of the building codes alluded to above — how easy would it be to install an elevator or make the building completely wheelchair accessible?).
It did not take a consultant to figure out the problems mentioned above, and this is not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination!
This building was a mess, and if you think a fresh coat of paint and a drop ceiling were going to make it usable for another hundred years you are living on a different planet than the rest of us.
Bottom line, stop flogging this dead horse. We were not on the board that decided to demolish the building and we do not know the price tag for a complete re-build. For some it makes sense, for others, not.
This building was built when kids walked 2 miles to and from school, up-hill, in the snow, both ways. It was made like a happiness sucking vault designed for making kids into drones. Today, we try to make schools more friendly and inspiring and we try to use more natural sunlight, with a serious eye for energy efficiency.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on and on about how people who actually take care of buildings like this feel when you ask them to fix something. They could talk your ear off about the problems involved.
By the way, Andrew, thanks for the pictures. It is fun exploring buildings like this.
One point agree with David on is that buildings *should* be preserved while they are still in use, and re-used whenever possible. I, too, hope that places like W.D. Lowe can continue to be used as it is a very nice looking building.
Do you know if they did anything with those interior doors…I could use one.
David II, buildings like this do pass modern building codes as the codes back then are higher today. And, if by the long shot it’s not, it’s grandfathered in. As for the fire codes, yes, they are changing. But, they change for the new buildings too, e.g, fire bells and heat sensosr have to be moved. So, it’s nothing new. I’m sure it’s already fire retrofitted extensively–I see doors with crash bars seperating the locker room from the stair cases.
Heating too expensive? Come on, how much heat do you think a glass dome like they’re planning to build retains? You think it’s cheaper to heat a double brick structure than a glass dome? You’re dreaming!
And you can always add an insulated interior wall to the exterior wall–easiest way, you cut out holes for extension electrical boxes, take a sheet of fire rated drywall and sandwich it between styrofoam and you’ll see how high your R values rises. If not, add steel studs and insulate it with ruxol.
Updating some of the windows, if not aleady done, are still cheaper than building new.
You have to put a new heating/cooling system in the new building they’re going to build anyway. It’s still cheaper to retrofit tbe older building.
Let me think. Does Dillion Hall have elevators? If so, how hard was it to add that?
Asbestos? Give me a break. Back in the 70’s & 80’s, the building code required all building products to be sprayed or made with asbestos because it made it fire proof. 80%+ of the buildings in Windsor have asbestos in it and they’re still in those buildings. No matter how you look at it, it’s impossible to avoid contact with asbestos at some point in your life. I’m sure everyone’s come into contact with it just like tobacco smoke. If you have friable asbestos, all you need to do is duct tape it or cover it with something like more tile. We export 200 million tonnes of asbestos to third world countries like India and China each year… Asbestos only becomes an issue when you remove stuff or demolish buildings, which they did, and this is a cost they could have saved. Seriously, the whole asbestos issue is blown way out of proportion from reality…
Bottom line is it would have been a lot cheaper to retrofit this place than build new. What’s the price tag of new engineering building supposed to be put in it’s place? $80 million? How much do you think the taxpayers could have saved by retrofitting the old and simply adding on a back section? And, how much better would the UW campus look with it. I don’t even want to get into a discussion of the prestige old buildings add to ivy league and top notch universities in North America. Doesn’t surprise me that Windsor gets such a low rating when it comes to univerities…
To David II – Asbestos is not the obstacle a lot of people make it out to be. I live in a sizeble 80 year old house. We had all asbestos “professionally” removed from our pipes for $1200. Our hot-water heating is much more efficient that what is being put into modern buildings. We can have modern mini-duct air conditioning installed for about $6000. Our house will be standing long after all of the lousy new homes out there have fallen down. This nonsense that it is cheaper to tear down and build new is nonsense. I went to high school at Kennedy C.I. and would place the quality and learning experience in that school on par with anything out there. And by the way, the windows in old schools are much larger than those in modern schools. Humming flourescent dirty-electricity is not natural light.
David, your dismissal of health concerns and safety codes is disturbing. Second hand smoke has caused, and will continue to cause, serious harm to society. Unwanted exposure to it should be eliminated as much as possible. Asbestos should not just be covered up — especially when a brand new building is being constructed. We don’t live in India, or China — nor do I want to, so why do you bring up our exports to countries that do not place the same value on individual lives as we do? I would not be surprised if we export lead to China, I still don’t want my kids playing with lead covered toys. We may export melamine to China; do you want to drink it?
You state asbestos becomes an issue when you “remove stuff,” and is this not what would have to have been done to this building if it was going to be re-used? You may feel comfortable around asbestos and second hand smoke — does that mean everyone else in Canada must conform to your tastes?
You repeatedly state that preserving this building would have cost less than tearing it down and replacing it, but there is no evidence of this. In fact, from this very site, there is evidence to the contrary. Not that many months ago there was a story on John Campbell school and its preservation. In the comments, Andrew wrote: “Happily at the end after years of discussion, they [Board of Education] were willing to take the costlier route.” So, David, preserving John Campbell is costing the tax payers *more* money than tearing it down, but according to you, preserving Prince of Wales would have cost less. How did you arrive at that conclusion?
Finally, if the University of Windsor scores low on school rankings because the buildings are not as nice as somewhere else, I wouldn’t place any value on such a comparison. That’s like saying Windsor scores as it does because the inhabitants are ugly. You may find such a metric valuable, but I do not.
The building needed to be torn down because of the costly repairs to bring it up to standards. If they tear it down people complain, if they restore it, costing more then replacement people will complain, it’s human nature. The time to renovate the building was when it closed down, in the mid 90’s, maybe the University, at that time, would’ve used it for a new arts program but they chose to let it fall apart. However this building needed to be torn down to make way for a a new building that will be state of the art for an engineering program that needs new and improved facilities.
Yeah David II, and your dismissal of heritage buildings is very disturbing… You say tomato and I say tomate-o. Eliminating unwanted exposure is ridiculous because you simply can’t. It’s pointless to be anal and destructive when human life isn’t even measurable. You really can’t adjust life’s variables like math. George Burns smoked 7+ cigars a day since he was 12 and lived past 100. But, I guess, according to your logic, that could never happen. And, if he didn’t smoke, do you think he would live longer. And, if he did, would he have wanted to?
You can also live the cleanest life with your children and get hit and killed by a drunk driver tomorrow (as I recently read in the paper about Ondataje). It’s all relative. God doesn’t give you extra points for following the “health code”. When God decides your fate, you can’t avoid it, no matter how you live your life. So, it makes no difference in the grand scheme of things whether you have a little exposure or not. When your time has come, fate will find a way, if not by lung cancer then by a drunk driver hitting you or maybe even you walking by a building and having a chunk of the building land on your head.
So, seriously, what’s the point of being so destructive and anal about finding reasons to trash heritage buildings. Here was an opportunity to make a difference and save something that gave us continuity with the past and it wasn’t done. Instead we end up with an ugly turd. Thanks, Windsor seems to have a lot of people like you who are so destructive and don’t give a sh-it.
David II. I notice that you have responded to David and not to my post. According to your logic, I should spend $15,000 to demolish and remove my $300,000 heritage home and the spend $500,000 to rebuild it. I could do everything you say for the $15,000 cost of tearing it down. School boards make that choice because the Provincial funding formula supports it, not because it is cheaper. Being wasteful and throwing things out is just that, wasteful. And your argument that old buildings make a university less appealing? Good grief, where did you come up with that??? University of Toronto, McGill, Queens, Harvard, Yale, etc. would seriously beg to differ with your conclusion. This school was deliberately neglected. It’s condition was a factor of neglect and not age. On another point, asbestos is only a problem if it is disturbed and it can safely be removed. Thankfully, not everyone thinks the way you do. Enjoy your day breathing in the chemicals out of your carpets and pressboard of your modern suburban home.
Interesting…thanks for posting the photos! The one with ‘Isobel’ written on the chalkboard is from an installation by former MFA visual art student, Melissa Mazar for her thesis defense. I remember the inside of this school…always liked it regardless of its decay. Would have made great artist studios or the like!
It is too bad that these old buildings aren’t stripped down and everything in it that can be recyled and taken away before they demolish them..